<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>chasing down dream matter by essektheylyss (midnightindigo)</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27768151">chasing down dream matter</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnightindigo/pseuds/essektheylyss'>essektheylyss (midnightindigo)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Critical Role (Web Series)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Assassination Attempt(s), Astral Projection, M/M, Magic and Science</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 22:55:45</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>759</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27768151</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnightindigo/pseuds/essektheylyss</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The new research the Assembly has sent has him chasing something. He doesn't know what.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Essek Thelyss/Caleb Widogast</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>81</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>chasing down dream matter</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Prompt fill from tumblr for salamoonder! </p>
<p>Maybe next week I will have new ideas but for now I slog through NaNoWriMo lol.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>All of the equations had made sense. Everything had worked. It should’ve <i>worked</i>. But here he is, caught in the spinning universe of the Luxon, moving so fast he’s dizzy, chasing after—<i>something</i>.</p>
<p>Something is ahead of him and he needs—he needs—he needs it.</p>
<p>He has never experienced astral projection—it is not a form of magic he cares to dabble in—but he has read about its effects, and all he can think is that whatever thing he is giving chase to in this void of stars and emptiness, it is moving fast enough that he fears he may never find his way back.</p>
<p>It is moving fast enough that he cannot say for certain that he will catch it.</p>
<p>Whatever it is, he knows that it is the first interesting thing the research he sold his soul for has produced, and he will follow it to whatever end may come for him.</p>
<p>He has always thrown himself willingly to the void and trusted himself to catch him before he reaches terminal velocity. It’s always been a possibility that his trust is misplaced, but there is no one he trusts more.</p>
<p>“<i>Essek.</i>”</p>
<p>The voice ricochets in his head, shocking him enough that he almost jerks off course, losing the signal of whatever he is following, the light at the end of a very long tunnel, and he feels, like a phantom, a hand on his shoulder, very, very, very far away.</p>
<p>He shudders a gasp, in his mind more than anything else, but throws himself headlong after it, bearing down on his quarry—</p>
<p>“<i>Essek, you are going to kill yourself chasing a dream. Let go.</i>”</p>
<p>“<i>I can’t—</i>“ he stammers out, but he can feel whatever grip he has straining, like playing tug of war with an ocean, and he wonders if perhaps he can win.</p>
<p>He has always had too much faith in his own hubris, a small part of him knows.</p>
<p>It seems as though he has been chasing this for as long as he remembers, and he can barely picture the man who is standing beside him, in his study, and he imagines letting go now, leaving his body behind to rot if only he can follow this to its end.</p>
<p>“<i>Essek, come back to me. Please.</i>”</p>
<p>It’s just ahead of him, this pinprick of light, and at his heels is a furnace, a wildfire pressing its hands to his face and cradling his head, and he’s being torn in two directions all at once—</p>
<p>When he lets go, letting the ocean sweep him back out and away from the light, he falls back into the void and lands—</p>
<p>In the lap of a human supporting his shaking shoulders. He gasps, trying to sit up, and finds that he’s too weak to support himself. Instead he curls, choking on air that he has only started again to use, into Caleb’s side, and Caleb wraps his arms around Essek’s shoulders, rocking him back and forth.</p>
<p>“I almost had it,” Essek mumbles out, remembering how to speak, and Caleb only tightens his grip, and for the first time, as feeling filters back to him, he notices that Caleb is trembling as badly as he is.</p>
<p>“It almost had you.” Caleb’s voice is choked, and neither of them seem capable of letting go of the other. “What in the Nine Hells were you following?”</p>
<p>Essek stammers as he points weakly to scattered papers that sit around him in the rune circles that he’s drawn on the stone. “New… new findings. From the Assembly.”</p>
<p>“I think this was a trap,” Caleb says. “A very clever assassination attempt. An ambitious young mage who flew too close to the sun? Found dead in the middle of a failed ritual?”</p>
<p>Essek knows, instantly, that Caleb’s right, and he squeezes his eyes shut against the terror and the alarm and the utter disappointment—that he’d played right into his enemies’ trap because they knew how to lure him there.</p>
<p>“But I found you, okay?” Caleb reminds him, and his voice is so soft that Essek almost forgets that it’s Caleb—it’s softer than he has ever heard it. </p>
<p>“I would be dead if not for you.” Even in his burning embarrassment, he can’t bring himself to let go of Caleb, clinging to the solid warmth of his shoulders to remind himself that he is alive. “I think I owe you another favor.”</p>
<p>Caleb’s laugh is watery, and both of them are aware of how close to the brink they have just been.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hope you enjoyed!</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>